I am working on a project in Zambia which is trying to test the most feasible contact times of mothers with children below 24 months and health workers between routine monthly length/height measurement and following the EPI immunization schedule which would result in at most 24 contacts and 9 contacts respectively. As such there is a need to supply anthropometric equipment. However, guidance on the the quantity of equipment per given population is unclear to me.
If I am planning to initiate length/height measurements in a new area where staff have to be trained to correctly take length/height measurement in WHO's 3 days growth assessment course, just how do I determine the number of health workers or community volunteers to train for a given population of children below two years or below five years in this new area?
I would welcome advice or sharing of experience from others working in Zambia or in similar contexts.
Dear MacDonald, I am working in Ethiopia. Here at community level we have health posts staffed with Health Extension Workers. One health post serves to around 5,000 population. Five health posts report to a cluster health center which serves for 25,000 population. HEWs do assessment using only MUAC and are not tasked to do assessments using height. This is because of the complexity of the procedure (taking height, comparing weight for the height using the curve etc..). It is believed here that these procedures are too much for community level workers. Do you have another experience in Zambia?
On another hand health workers in Health Centers (serving for around 25,000 population) are expected to do this assessment. But it is limited to children coming to the health center for different services and it is not in use for active screening in the routine system. With expansion of facilities, lots of 'new' HCs do not have 'height boards' and the cost of the material (height board from offshore) is really high.
For your case, I think the health tier system is an important first consideration. Then check if community level workers are tasked to do that in the national standard. ' Scalability' of the intervention (the cost of the material) may also be important factor. I am just sharing my experience and I not sure if this is useful for you. Kindly share us the practice in your context (especially if it is practiced by community level workers and the cost etc.)
Answered:
7 years ago